


Night Vale Syndrome

by Winter_of_our_Discontent



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, POV Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Spoilers for Episode 25: One Year Later, Typical Night Vale Violence, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 01:51:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winter_of_our_Discontent/pseuds/Winter_of_our_Discontent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inasmuch as an inanimate entity such as an incorporated city could be considered to have human emotions and preferences, Carlos was beginning to suspect Night Vale didn’t like scientists.</p><p>But something here seems to like <i>him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Vale Syndrome

Carlos placed the final strip of packing tape across the top flaps of the cardboard box. He considered adding a bit more tape, but between all the tape he’d already applied, the to and from addresses (and the address glyphs that he hoped he’d copied correctly -- it was difficult when he couldn’t seem to look at them directly) and the variety of warning labels ( _No Live Rodents. No Dead Rodents. Contents Not on Fire. Contents Devoid of Value. Contents Devoid of Meaning._ ) there was barely any visible cardboard left.

He gave the box a final check, almost willing there to be something else to do to it, but it just sat on the counter, looking vaguely accusatory in a purely metaphorical sense, and as ready to be mailed as he could make it.

Carlos sighed and lifted the box carefully, mindful of its weight and unwilling to risk damage to the contents. He managed to smash his fingers in between the box and the doorframe as he maneuvered it out the slightly-too-small door of the lab, awkwardly holding the screen door open with his foot.

As he drove, he felt as though he should talk to the box, now in the passenger’s seat, maybe apologise to it. But everything he could think to say was already inside, in the form of a stupid letter sitting on top of everything else. The first one he’d had to write had taken him an entire week and liberal use of both alcohol and a thesaurus. This one had only taken him an hour or two to compose, though he’d first avoided the task for two weeks.

_To the family of Doctor Aaliyah Cooper---_

It was addressed in care of their department; she must’ve have her family or next of kin on file with HR and with any luck they could take care of getting it to them.

Carlos gently deposited the box in the blue and yellow striped dumpster in back of the Arby’s, then chalked the appropriate symbols on the outside of the metal to send it Priority.

He drove back to the lab and stood outside the door, staring somewhat vacantly at its turquoise trim and glowing runes. He turned and headed next door to Big Rico’s instead; he was already cutting it close on meeting this week’s quota. The pizza slice tasted like tomato-sauce covered ash in his mouth, though he couldn’t have said whether that was simply an projected manifestation of his emotional state or because Big Rico’s was still trying to find substitutes for wheat and wheat by-products. As a scientist he respected their dedication to problem-solving through experimentation, as a Night Vale resident with a weekly obligation to patronize them he sincerely hoped they’d figure out something soon.

He chewed his slice and drank his weekly bottle of beer, which was not civically mandated but was terribly handy for cutting the taste of the pizza, thoughtfully and Scientifically.

It was just him now.

Of the half dozen scientists who had come to Night Vale, he was now the only one left. The rest had vanished (in the most literal sense, there’d even been a very atmospheric puff of smoke where he’d been standing, leaving only a pair of worn down purple Converse), been absorbed by a mysterious pulsating turquoise goo while trying to take a sample of it, had not come back after going to look up something at the public Library, and of course Kim... He shuddered. He tried not to think about what had happened to Kim. He still had nightmares about it. Until it was just himself and Dr. Cooper, and now just... him.

Inasmuch as an inanimate entity such as an incorporated city could be considered to have human emotions and preferences, Carlos was beginning to suspect Night Vale didn’t like scientists.

Which was ridiculous, of course. Night Vale wasn’t alive, except of course as a culturally and economically constructed functioning macro-organism in a purely sociological sense, and really, who didn’t like Science? It was the pursuit of Truth ( _If you see something, say nothing_ ) and Knowledge ( _and drink to forget_ ).

...alright, there was a certain preponderance of evidence suggesting he might be in trouble.

He finished his beer, then dropped the empty bottle in the recycling bin and his grease-stained paper plate and napkins in the trash next to it.

Carlos had never considered himself of the intrepid loner breed of Scientist, toiling ceaselessly in Intellectual Solitude in a basement lab; he likewise wasn’t a brave explorer like Roy Chapman Andrews or Dr. Livingston. He was just a post-doc on what in retrospect had been a very strangely worded renewable two-year grant. He liked working quietly in a lab, he liked co-workers, he liked _not dying._

But it was just him now.

He had nothing in particular to go back to; he’d sold or given away whatever he couldn’t bring and he and Henry had broken up a week or two before he’d left, the grant having created a convenient time frame for them to admit things hadn’t been working anyway.

Carlos headed back to the lab.

If he went back now... they... he... there was no publishable data yet, no proof of anything, no... well, no Science. Just him, his return heralded by the metaphorical shadows of five other researchers who weren’t ever coming back.

He owed it to them to stay at least a little longer. Didn’t he?

He made himself a cup of coffee and sat at the folding table in a corner of the lab. His knuckles were white where they wrapped around the warm mug, an ugly old cup with writing too worn to be read; he’d meant to send the stupid thing back but couldn’t remember who it had originally belonged to.

He’d stay. He’d stay long enough to get results, something publishable. He’d put everyone’s name on it. It was the best he could do. It was only a two year grant, he could last that long.

And then he’d get out of here.

He grabbed a pen from one of the tables and said, voice flat and deliberate, “I will now experiment with reverse osmosis and the absorbency of various plant fibers using this liquid-filled tube and this piece of flattened tree pulp,” before beginning to write.

The next month passed in a blur of experiments and data, though unfortunately Carlos’ subconscious retained enough detail to give him frequent vivid nightmares.

He turned the large storage closet into a... panic room? Safe room? He’d moved a cot and sleeping bag in, and stocked it with a few days of rations, and covered the walls and door with anything he thought might keep it secure, including lines of salt and half remembered bits of Latin from childhood masses he’d been dragged to by his abuela.

When it got to be too much, he locked himself in.

His current record was eighteen hours.

But... he adjusted. Sometimes he even forgot about the danger, caught up in the sheer wonder of how the things that he saw could work. How a creature with no mouth could eat. How a glowing cloud could rain down animals. How the entire town could have off-the-chart levels of radiation and yet have a populace that showed none of the effects of long or short term exposure, nor did the surrounding plant or animal life. The odder the phenomena, the easier it was: a forest growing overnight brought up concerns about cellular growth rates, photosynthesis, CO2 conversion rates, the local water table, and issues of micro-climes and invasive species. A house that wasn’t there, only it was, was enough outside the realm of his experience that his brain didn’t even try to root around for answers or analogous facts, and was content instead to focus on observing and documenting the phenomena.

And then one of the avocados he’d bought began screaming and bleeding O positive as he cut into it, and it was back to the quiet room for a rest.

He could hear its dying gasps through the door.

He covered his ears with a pillow and tried desperately not to think of Kim.

It was as his mind was casting about for anything to think about that wasn’t Kim that he had a flash of... something.

He should be dead.

Statistically.

No, really. He needed to run the numbers, but the odds that he’d have survived as long as he had without something fatal happening to him were... vanishingly small. Compared to the others, he was a clear outlier, so far off the charts he’d have to rescale the Y axis to accommodate it.

What made him different? Six wasn’t a huge sample size, and he had no control group.

He’d been standing next to Krishna when he’d vanished. It could have as easily been him. He’d been trying to take a sample of the goo as well, but it had left him alone. He’d had his share of near misses, as his dreams never failed to remind him, but they were still _misses_.

He hadn’t had so much as a paper cut since coming here.

Which was odd, really, because while he wasn’t clumsy, accidents _happened_ , especially since he had a marked tendency to become distracted by his thoughts while he was working. 

Thinking about cuts made him think of something else.

Soon after he’d gotten here, Carlos had gotten a haircut. He’d meant to get one before he’d arrived so he’d make a better first impression, but between preparing for the move to Night Vale and his breakup with Henry, there hadn’t been time.

He’d entered the first barber shop he’d seen and emerged with his hair no longer covering his eyes or hitting the back of his neck, and then, in the wake of…. well, of Night Vale, had promptly forgotten about haircuts altogether.

A month and a half later he’d driven down that street on the way to investigate a reported sighting of the Invisible Clock Tower and had noticed the storefront looked abandoned, front window broken and striped pole laying on its side. He’d assumed that the barbershop had either been another casualty of the continuing economic pressure on small businesses or of the Girl Scout Cookie Drive and Pledge-a-Rioter.

He’d heard rumors the barber (Tony? Terry?) had last been seen wandering the desert trying to give haircuts to ocotillo, which, even around here, didn’t seem to be in need of haircuts.

And maybe it was nothing, that he’d gotten a haircut and something had happened to the barber shortly after. Any number of people had likely patronized that barber. And things _happened_ to people in Night Vale.

But. 

Night Vale had one radio station, and that radio station had one show with one host, a man named Cecil Palmer. 

He’d had contact with the man a few times in the course of doing Science.

Cecil liked to mention him. It was a little… okay, it made him uncomfortable. But Cecil never did anything _besides_ mention Carlos in ridiculously glowing terms, so he’d just made a point of Not Thinking About It, which was something he’d been getting a great deal of practice with.

Cecil never mentioned the other scientists.

Cecil _had_ actually mentioned Carlos’ haircut, and been unhappy about it. And practically gleeful when the barber had been spotted in the desert.

It was probably just a coincidence. It was… it was something that he was not going to be able to Not Think About now, at least until he could prove or disprove the hypothesis.

It was _terrifying._

Carlos clutched at his hair, now grown out again, as though it were a lifeline. Maybe it was.

Oh god oh god oh god.

He grabbed his Standard Issue Hyperventilation Bag.

After an indeterminate amount of time breathing into it, he felt slightly calmer. Or at least less lightheaded.

Maybe… maybe it was alright. The man had never done anything _to_ Carlos. And there was no one else around him now to worry about. He could cut his own hair. 

He should probably never cut his hair.

But he wasn’t dead. And if he was right, he might have the dubious distinction of being one of the safest people in Night Vale. Maybe. 

He could see no way to safely test his hypothesis.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to test his hypothesis.

He was fucking terrified to test his hypothesis.

He would just… continue as he’d been going. He was starting to make progress on his research. Nothing had changed, except he was possibly now in possession of new facts. He would act the same way he always had, and only contact Cecil when absolutely necessary for Science Reasons.

It would be fine.

A year passed. Carlos continued to not be killed. Cecil invited him to a ceremony to celebrate his ‘anniversary’ in Night Vale. Carlos decided that it might be a good time to investigate the civilization under the pin return of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex instead. He’d been meaning to anyway.

It turned out to all be a matter of perspective, and Carlos felt the quiet satisfaction of having for once actually conclusively both solved a mystery _and_ removed a threat to the citizenry, instead of just discovering a new one and waiting for it to go away.

And then the unexpectedly tiny people of the unexpectedly tiny city attacked him. Unexpectedly. And it should have been funny, this odd… Gulliver’s Travels’ moment, but he was falling into the city, further into the darkness, and it _hurt_ , his body a pincushion for countless wickedly sharp inch long spears. Some part of him must have started taking his safety for granted, because through the pain he felt a sense of betrayal, that Cecil should have somehow saved him now, should have kept him safe, that it was his fault Carlos was dying, was going to die in the dark of the pin return after outlasting all of the other Scientists. He’d made it a whole _year_. It wasn’t _fair._ It wasn’t...

He heard yelling from somewhere far away, and then, closer, a voice murmuring to him soothingly in Russian. Something was tugging at his body. Everything hurt. Carlos gave up trying to keep his eyes open.

When he came to, he was in the center of a pentagram in the parking lot of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, being simultaneously bandaged and chanted at by its owner, Teddy Williams.

He was not, in fact, dead. He was, in fact, probably going to recover with minimal scarring. Minimal physical scarring, at least.

But the Apache Tracker was dead. Had died saving him.

Carlos was going to be sick.

He had to get to Cecil. Cecil was safe. He had almost died, and then he hadn’t died, and Cecil Was Safe.

He would be safe with Cecil. 

Carlos took out his cell phone and dialed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to analineblue for her tireless beta efforts.


End file.
